A philanthropist has given a $500,000 grant to the University of Arizona Poetry Center that it wants to spend on using poems to bring attention to inequities in the nation's criminal justice system.
The Arizona Daily Star reports the grant is from the Art for Justice Fund, formed earlier this year by philanthropist and art collector Agnes Gund.
Gund, spurred by a desire to do something about the inequality and injustice that has led to mass incarceration in the United States, sold a painting and established the fund with $100 million.
The three-year project will fund the commission and presentation of new poetry, the publication of the works, and the creation of a digital archive of the new works.
